Rockets’ playoff push gets vital shove with win over Jazz

The win against Utah didn't come easy for the Donatas Motiejunas and the Rockets. ( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle )

With a day off and orders to clear his mind, Jeremy Lin took the opportunity to head to the gym.

He did change things up a bit. With Alicia Keys taking over Toyota Center, Lin found a different court and a few different teammates. But Lin’s idea of a day off included basketball.

“It’s therapeutic,” he said.

After Sunday’s 30-point loss to Golden State, he and the Rockets needed the therapy, so Lin spent a chunk of Monday launching jumpers and playing HORSE.

When the Rockets reconvened at Toyota Center on Wednesday, Lin spent the night as if still goofing with his brother and buddies far from the cameras and lights. He repeatedly pierced the Utah Jazz defense, helping to drive the Rockets to a 26-point lead. And when the Jazz rallied in the fourth quarter, Lin knifed through them again, with one drive to a layup and another and a pass for a Chandler Parsons dunk that finally closed out the Jazz 100-93.

Lin made eight of nine shots in the paint as the Rockets went from launching 3-pointers to beating the Jazz at the rim, and from a series of slow starts to a rapid bolt from the opening tip that set the tone for the game.

“JLin made them pay,” Parsons said. “He’s a good player, especially in pick-and-roll. He’s fast. … He can get in the paint.”

With that, the Rockets pushed their lead over ninth-place Utah to three games and clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker. Though they needed a late push to finish off a game, the Rockets knocked each line of a checklist. They started rapidly, leading by 10 points in the first quarter and never trailing. They limited the Jazz, who are sixth in offensive rebounding, to five. They even got a first-half lift from a struggling bench.

Living in the lane

Most of all, when they built their lead early and protected it late, they lived in the lane.

“Jeremy really attacked the rim well,” Rockets coach Kevin McHale said. “I thought that Jeremy made some big hoops coming down the stretch when we needed them. They were really intent on staying with James (Harden) in the second half and really not giving him a lot of room, so Jeremy really broke free. Jeremy kept turning the corner and got in the paint. We needed all of those.”

Harden similarly got in the lane, especially in the first half when he scored 20 of his 29 points. He drew fouls and made 17 of 18 free throws but went 0-for-6 from the field in the second half.

With the Jazz guards going over screens and the big men showing only briefly before scrambling back to the Rockets’ rolling centers, Lin repeatedly turned the corner and finished at the rim. He made nine of 13 shots to score 24 points. In March’s nine games, he has made 53.9 percent of his shots.

“A lot of times I read the big man and what the guard is doing,” Lin said. “The guard was coming over the screen and the big man was leaving early. It allowed a lot of dribble penetration for me and James tonight.”

Lin had 10 third-quarter points as the Rockets built a 26-point lead. But when they slowed down and Utah’s Gordon Hayward got hot, the Jazz closed to within eight with 4:25 left. With that, Lin twice beat Alec Burks off the dribble. After a timeout, the Rockets ran a rare set play with Lin passing to a cutting Parsons, pushing the lead back to 10.

Horsing around

The Jazz never really threatened again. No additional therapy was needed.

“Sometimes, when you do that, you get the feel of the joy of the game back in you again,” Lin said of his day off in the gym. “I went and shot. My little brother is in town. My buddy is here. We just went out and messed around, played some HORSE. But we didn’t get to finish because other people started playing. Everyone had S.”